The Voice for the St. Louis Construction Industry

A new Hoyt Advisory Services Study commissioned by the National Apartment Association (NAA) and National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) reveals that the apartment industry and its residents annually contribute $18 billion to the St. Louis metro’s economy, $38.4 billion to Missouri’s, and more than $3.4 trillion – or $9.3 billion daily – to the national economy. The new report, available at WeAreApartments.org, provides a detailed breakdown of the economic impact nationally, by state, and in 50 metro areas.

“St. Louis city is currently seeing an unprecedented amount of development including over 2,000 apartment units in the pipeline. The city is going to receive over 50% of the units currently under construction in the St. Louis MSA, even though it contains only 11% of the population. Demand drivers, such as the $1.75 billion National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency project, which is set to break ground this summer in north St. Louis, and the continued development of the Cortex Innovation Community are turning the city into a tech-hub. Apartment developers are taking note,” said John Morrissey, Broadmoor Group, St. Louis Apartment Association Board of Directors.

“As demand for apartments continues to grow locally and nationally, the significant contributions to the St. Louis metro’s economy also increase. Apartments drive our local economy by adding employment opportunities, as well as revenue from resident spending, new construction, renovation and repair, and operations, all of which are positively impacting St. Louis,” Morrissey added.

The study also determined that the apartment industry has a major impact on local, state and national tax economies. Locally, tax payments associated with local apartment operations added $120 million and their residents contributed more than $1.3 billion in taxes to the St. Louis metro economy. These taxes support schools, improvements to local infrastructure, and other critical services in St. Louis.

Highlights from the report include:

All four sectors of the industry have posted very strong growth, punctuated by the construction industry ramping up to meet the unprecedented demand for apartments this cycle – reaching a height of 346,900 new apartments built in 2017, up from 129,900 in 2011.

Previous research by Hoyt Advisory Services demonstrated a need to build an average of 328,000 apartments per year at a variety of price points, which would bring continued economic activity. This number of apartment completions has only been surpassed twice since 1989.

Hoyt research also found that a significant portion of the existing apartment stock will need to be renovated in the coming years, boosting the renovation and repair sector.

“The apartment industry’s contribution is one that has grown in recent years, fueled by increased rental demand overall as population and employment growth continue and renting becomes a preferred tenure choice for millions of Americans,” said Eileen Marrinan, Managing Director of Eigen 10 Advisors, which partnered with Hoyt.

Visit www.WeAreApartments.org and view the data, which is broken down by state and metro area. Visitors can also use the Apartment Community Estimator(ACE), a tool that allows users to enter the number of apartment homes of an existing or proposed community to determine the potential economic impact within a particular state or metro area. For the purposes of this study, apartments are defined as rental apartments in buildings with five or more units.

For more than 25 years, the National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) and the National Apartment Association (NAA) have partnered on behalf of America’s apartment industry. Drawing on the knowledge and policy expertise of staff in Washington, D.C., as well as the advocacy power of more than 150 NAA state and local affiliated associations, NAA and NMHC provide a single voice for developers, owners and operators of multifamily rental housing. For more information, please visit www.nmhc.org or www.naahq.org.